As with any networking tool or group, the important element is to be recognized as an expert on a specific subject matter(s). Being resourceful is key as it keeps your name out in front of others. The more someone can repeat your name and recommend you as the go-to person, the quicker your network grows, especially through social networks.

Getting Started

1.      Sign up for an account with your email address.

2.      Create a profile.

a.       Upload a professional picture

b.      List your work history

c.       Craft a summary of qualifications using unique keywords that demonstrates expertise

d.      Include links to other social networking sites, a personal website or blog

3.      Upload your address book and connect with everyone who is already a member of LinkedIn with a personally crafted message, not the default one provided.  Response rates will be much higher this way.

4.      Search for, and connect with, past coworkers, vendors, or other connections that aren’t currently in your address book

5.      Include your LinkedIn profile in the signature of your emails. Use the icon if possible

Next Steps

1.      Begin providing recommendations for your connections. Recommending others increases the likelihood that they will do the same to you.

2.      Ask your connections for a personal recommendation.  When someone writes a recommendation, you are then on their recommended service providers list for others to see.

3.      Join groups associated with your profession and become an active participant

4.      Ask and answer questions genuinely.

If you’ve not explored LinkedWorking yet, check it out. Lewis Howes is one of the best.

1. On the ubiquitous “Homepage”
2. Emailed to everyone in our electronic database in a stand-alone email.
3. First thing the agents should offer
4. Heavily incentified to the consumer to buy
5. Countless other suggestions/pitches without knowing a darn thing about our business

It seems that companies invest very little today in understanding a prospective customer’s complex business environment before offering a product.  What happened to the consulting part of sales?  The one that asks a laundry list of questions that makes the prospect feel like they want to help our business processes succeed vs offering a product to alleviate pain X which, quite possibly, could have a lot of political, cultural, and, at the very least, budgetary restrictions or challenges.

With 5+ industries represented under one roof, I have vendors who are competing with many well established relationships not only within their own sector but across very unique business categories. For instance, one financial service provider fights for the same ears and dollars trying to solve how to sell more auto insurance policies for 6 different companies.  6 Auto insurance companies are fighting for space with 10+ cruise lines.  10+ different cruise lines believe that they each are the only vendor that should be considered the number one focus for the organization.  At the end of the day, I’m looking to a vendor to understand where they fall within, not only their own category, but within our decision set as to how we’re offering products and service to our customer.  Pushing their product is not going to change the fundamental core of how we train our own staff to conduct business.

A good sales person requires perseverance but only in the sense that they need to prove their commitment to understanding their prospects business endeavors, environment, complexities and yes, pain points that they may be able to alleviate.  Relationships are built on trust and that trust is earned over time and multiple conversations.  It will not be won by offering a lower price point, bigger commissions, or by offering additional product training for the front line.

It feels like the economic times have created desperation which leads to poor salesmanship and, in the long-run, performance.  We need to get back to the basics of sales and use the tools to build relationships that will be more profitable in the end.  Technology has made great strides in the last 10 years to begin the quest of learning more about your customer before even stepping foot in the door.

If I were going back into direct sales, I’d connect with my contact(s) on LinkedIn.  I would read about your company, about your background and credibility/expertise, maybe check out your blog, and possibly get to know a little about your personality from reading your posts on Twitter. Not that I will do all of these things, but if I were a smart sales person, I’d at least go into a conversation feeling more comfortable about my approach with you.  How lucky are we today in the sales environment?  Typically, we would have spent countless hours of warm calling, small talking over coffee, or in very mundane office visits only to feel like we were being herded out as quickly as we came in.  Take advantage of what’s out there and be creative in understanding your prospective customer. The effort will go a long way.

With limited budgets for intensive field training and/or, the smaller guys and gals are actually sharing information and leveraging each others expertise.  An open source travel agency, perhaps?  Gone are the days of proprietary information.  The knowledge and power is now in the hands of customer.  They are focused, motivated and well learned on their specific destination, how to get there and what brand they want to travel with.  How does one travel agent learn all there is to know about every nook and cranny destination in the world?

Mashable has compiled a pretty comprehensive list of tools that consumers use today in the social media space. Make sure you’re registered with each of these sites and explore them thoroughly so that when your customer refers to a particular site, you can access the information (and possibly connect with them) right along with them to make sure you’re talking about an apples to apples comparison.  Invest some time into watching who’s doing it right.  Follow Christopher Elliott’s  Top 50 travel folks on Twitter or read on of his recommended Top 50 travel blogs from 2008.

How can you add value to differentiate yourself as a travel agent using social media tools?  Make road trips exciting by suggesting high tech applications to use on their way.    Put travelers in touch with other resources to help them make a decision faster about where they want to go.  Check out user-generated tools such as Wikitravel or discussion boards such as Cruise Critic or Tripadvisor right along side (or online) your client to get 3rd party, ‘travelers like them’ opinions and/or reviews .

Do you have a Facebook fan page (linked to yours, of course) for your business so that others can tout your services to all of their friends?  What about being a part of LinkedIn’s groups or being an active participant on their business travel conversation?  These are great ways to learn from those you’ve already serviced.  Conversations are public which also allows for prospective customers to see as well.

Happy Selling!

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Some of the reasons large organizations are falling behind in using the social space is due to multiple layers of red tape, traditional strategic thinking and a rigid business plan that blocks their creativity. These Mama Tomatoes are constantly playing “ketchup” as they are taking years to untangle their mangled vines. Meanwhile their Baby Tomatoes competitors are passing them by without the issues of rotting office politics, dried up policies and other Mama Tomatoes who throw themselves up at performers who introduce any  notion of creativity to spawn new business activity.  Please take note, Mama Tomatoes: your customers are not waiting for you to play “ketchup.” If you’re not seeking new and innovative ways to increase your bottom line using new technology, your Baby Tomatoes compeitors who are young, juicy and ripe will use you on a salad and eat you up in seconds.

It’s go time in these tough economic times.  Customers are doing business with those they have valuable and genuine relationships with – online and off.  Companies MUST find ways to squash (punn intended) old habits, thought process and tactics from the days of old or else their customers will act like bananas and split.

The NEW ROI = Return on Influence.  It’s a shift in business strategy and thinking to engage their customer base so that they become brand champions online.  Even more so, personal champions of your employees who represent your brand. After all, we do business with people, your business.  ROI (return on influence, to reiterate) is still a numbers game – how many genuine relationships can you create and maintain (key word) so that positive encounters with those people generate buzz and conversation about your business?

Case Study

Last year, I set out on a journey to gather information that would gain Groundswell within my organization.  I needed a way to positively impact our footprint within 5 markets and increase online revenue by using social media tools as a “free” and easy way to build relationships with potential clients. I chose Twitter as the best tool for my project.

Return on Influence at work:

Summary

• 6 tweets
• ~2000 tweeple viewing tweet exchange and products and services for TV interview idea
• 205,320 viewers exposed to the brand
• 205 potential clients

Details

1 follower:  local tv station managing editor (~2000 combined followers at the time viewing tweet exchange)

6 Tweets  with follower =  3.9 minutes* =$2.15 cost of tweeting

2 – 15  second TV interviews ->

205,320 people exposed to the brand

OK. For those that just can’t stand it, read on for your <shutter> “return on your investment” </shutter>

x 1% response rate:  205 potential clients

205 clients x average of  $3/client spent annually = $615

$615 – $2.15 (cost of tweeting) = $612.85 revenue

Those are pretty staggering numbers!

Employees of big brands can have an influence that will spread like wildfire if they take advantage of social media tools.  These tools are connected through a series of tangled webs. The conversation starts with them which is quickly broadcasted through their communities in seconds which looks a little something like this:

Social Web - Spiders do it best

There is some argument that this is just “reach” vs true influence.  That’s quite possible but I also believe that influence is also attributed to the integrity and trustworthiness of the transmitter who may be able to help convert the conversation into a sale. If the influencer (or person who starts the conversation) isn’t following up or engaging others about the product or service, then yes, the mention is only reaching a wider audience and not enticing them to do anything with the information.

Social media is a more grassroots and creative way to affect the way people think about and interact with you.  Your metrics need to be as flexible as the tool which is quite the opposite as using traditional tools like direct mail where the statistics a 1:1 relationship.

Twitter is a real-time discussion of sorts called a microblog . You can choose to follow everyone tweeting, or be selective and search for those with interests similar to yours. Let me explain using the frequently asked questions I receive from friends and family.

How I find people to follow

I take a blended approach to Twitter because my goal is to build genuine relationships – get to know people on both a professional and personal level. I am a student of many things so those I follow are broad in scope. The topics I tweet about are as such as well. For example, here are the topics I tweet about and topics I search for most frequently:

• Social media
• Digital marketing
• Wine
• Travel
• Cloth Diapers
• Columbus

I look for experts I want to learn from in each of the areas and then follow them. I start reading their tweets and engage in conversations with them if it’s something I’m interested in. I also look for questions that I can answer from my experiences. Twitter allows you to see who those experts are engaging with – yet another person YOU may be interested in following as well. And thus, expanding your social network.

Rather than tweeting about what I’m doing, I tweet about what I’m thinking about, what interests me today, and what information could be helpful to others that are following me with regards to the above content. The combination of my personal and professional tweets allows others to get to know me more personally rather than just my professional side of life.

When I Tweet

Twitter is just another communication tool for me.  It’s integrated into my life just as texting is for those who choose to use their phones to communicate.  With the help of Firefox and IE7′s tabs, Twitter stays up on my screen at all times. I tweet while waiting for reports to run, during lunch, during Webcasts and conference calls, and when I just need a break from mind-numbing daily tasks.  Twitter is my “smoke break”.

I’m constantly asked how I find the time to tweet.  Entering in 140 characters typing at a pace of 60 words per minute takes hardly 10 seconds for me.  That’s a pretty powerful stat considering that I read even faster.  Think of all of the information I’m consuming in that amount of time!

How I Keep Up with 1000+ Followers

First, Tweetdeck is incredibly helpful in categorizing my followers.  I concentrate on the local Columbus folks and those tweeting about social media primarily and then the others as a secondary read when I have a few minutes of extra down-time.  So in any given period, I can scan and read through about 60 tweets in under 2 minutes.  I mark those I want to refer to later as “favorites” and go back later on to read the blog post, article or engage with that person later for more information later on.

Second, I’m not a big fan of watching TV so I have plenty of time to go back and read the blog posts linked within my favorite tweets after my daughter goes to bed or before I leave for work in the morning.  Stoplights,  waiting for trains, and standing in line while shopping have also been great times to get caught up on tweets from my smart phone. I was once asked “what about Trish time?”  My response – this IS “Trish Time.”

Learning about the topics above, especially social media,  is a passion of mine so finding time to read about these things isn’t difficult.  It’s the same time one may use to knit, scrap, or play a board game.  It’s one of the ways I decompress from my work day.

Twitter vs IM vs Email vs Discussion Boards

Twitter provides a way to easily digest a lot of information in a short period of time.  It allows you to talk with many people across the globe that you may not have met through the other tools.  Here are the limitations I find with those:

• IM:  Usually already have to know the person you want to chat with to obtain their screen name. Can only talk with that person, or a limited group of people (if invited into a chat room) and can’t see their interactions with others.
• Email:  Not a conversation – a push/pull relationship.
• Discussion Boards:  You actually have to read an entire post to get to the point, question or concern.

Twitter may not be for everyone but I can prove value to even the biggest skeptics.  My husband doesn’t want the world to know what he’s doing at any given point in time – and that’s fine.  He’s also missing out on those that could be interesting to him such as other classic country music buffs, high school football fanatics, and incremental revenue opportunities for his real estate appraisal business.  A topic of ROI we’ll discuss in a future post.

How to start

Step 1:  Sign up – use your full name as your username/handle. It’ll be easier for people to find you and help you build your personal brand.

Step 2:  Read through the Help area to learn the lingo, do’s and don’t s

Step 3:  Fill out your profile using keywords that will attract people to you. When they search, you’re more likely to then show up in the results.  For example, my keywords look like this: Social media |Digital Marketing|Mom|Buckeye fanatic|Travel|Wine|Athlete|Animal lover

Step 4:  Create a few tweets that are relevant to your expertise (topics in your profile/keywords) over the first few days while searching for people to follow

Step 5:  Find people to follow in the area (your keywords) you’re most interested in learning from. You can use the search box to the right of the Twitter main area.

Step 6:  Start the conversation!

Time in today’s world moves much faster than those of yesterday. Businesses must be able to think, act, and communicate quickly (and personally) on customer demands. Customers don’t care why the rules exist – they just want more control over the way they interact and buy from you. If their expectations are not met, they’ll buy from your competitor.

Are you standing in  your own way of success? Do you:

• Make it easy for customers to find out how to to call, click or visit your business and allow them to define how they should communicate with you?
• Talk with your customers personally?
• Avoid “the small print?”
• Act as a resource if you can’t meet a customer’s needs even if it means to refer them to a competitor?
• Ask your customers how you can collaborate to resolve an issue?
• Allow employees to do the right thing by give them the authority and opportunity to be the customer service hero?
• Enable your sales people to build and grow relationships both online and off (getting out from behind a desk)?

Sales is not a 5 letter dirty word. We are all sales people – we sell ourselves to earn trust in friends, to find partners, to secure a new job, and even convince a child why they should eat their veggies.  At the same time, we’re building our personal brand.  Each conversation with have with someone tells them a little about who we are.  Those people build an opinion and decide whether or not to keep in touch with you.

In this sales process, your words and actions are a part of building your personal brand. Become a resource for those you meet within your community.  Offer to help them solve a problem if what they are after is in an area in which you are experienced.  Follow-up and share your knowledge with them – information transfer is very powerful!

Becoming a great resource to your community means a commitment to being an ever-learning student.  Stay on top of your game by reading the latest news and research (online or off), reading books and talking with other experts on topics you’re interested in. With the rate of information transfer today, you risk losing credibility if you’re sharing information documented in a book published 15 years ago.

What groups or communities are you a part of online?  Using online resources to learn about new local networking groups or community activities is a place to start such as Tweetups or local LinkedIn groups.  While offline groups like Rotary are still very important in some industries and for those that aren’t internet savvy, communicating online opens a lot more relationship building opportunities broader and faster than offline groups can.

Stuck on how to begin?  Consider using Twitter or LinkedIn to join in the conversation with people who share your similar interests.  With both of these tools, I’ve met some incredible people.  And it’s not all business – we get to know each other on a personal level which deepens both of our personal brands.

In the end, it’s not about who you know, it’s about who knows you.  I’ll go one step further – of those who know you, can they tell 10 others 3 positive things about you? And that’s how your brand recognition begins.